Character Options AppGear to bring AR gaming to Doctor Who

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Character Options, the company behind many licensed toys including the Doctor Who and Wembley Stadium Character Building brick sets, Angry Birds catapult and Android plush, is to bring WowWee's AppGear to the UK, a new range of augmented reality games for Android, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

The first wave will be original properties, but once established, the firm plans to release a series of AppGear titles using its Doctor Who license. That means you will eventually be able to battle Daleks in the park or the Weeping Angels in the confines of your own bedroom.

These will be playable after the user buys the Doctor Who blaster, which works much like the AppBlaster from AppToyz we featured last year. An iPhone, iPod touch or Android device slots into the top of the plastic accessory and the game uses the real world (as seen through the device's camera) as a backdrop to the action.

AppGear isn't launching with this specific range, however. The first few titles will come in different guises, each offering an AR games experience, but with different included toys and triggers.

The first game, for example, is Foam Fighters, which comes with foam aeroplanes which stick to the back of an iDevice or Android handset. The player can then see it on the screen while they wend and shoot their way through obstacles and waves of enemies.

Alien Jailbreak includes an AR trigger-spattered block and alien figures. Zombie Burbz comes with Zombie figures that can interact with the screen of an iPad or Android tablet. Elite CommandAR uses a blaster like gun in a similar way to the prospective Doctor Who apps. We're not entirely sure what Mysterious Raygun will offer (apart from mystery, clearly). And Akodomon is a virtual pet simulation game, coming with, what it seems, plastic pompoms.

The range is expected to start (with Foam Fighters) in spring this year, with further launches throughout. Character Options (in association with Paper Jam manufacturer WowWee) is expecting big things with AppGear: "We're expecting big things," a spokesperson told Pocket-lint at Toy Fair 2012 in London.